Circle in the sky. Glacier’s best kept secret is ‘Good (Two) Medicine’

Original Post 7/28/21

This was one monster of a day. Biggest day ever and most likely the longest I will do this summer. That is why I spent a coveted ‘off ‘ day sitting on a bench in Apgar watching people eating ice-cream. Nothing like burning two days worth of calories in a13 hour marathon, covering 22+ miles and summitting two peaks off the trail.

Welcome to the famed Dawson Pass/Pitamakan Pass hike, located in the Two Medicine deep in the southeast corner of the park. Commonly called the Dawson/Pit Loop.

I had zero left in the tank for the last eight miles on the trail.   People even PASSED me as I set the autopilot and marched zombified to the trailhead. Which never happens to me (well, not often at least).  Did I over play my hand? 

Or know exactly how deep my reserves went when running on ‘E’? Most likely a little of each. Sometimes it feels good rob Peter to pay Paul, especially when you know all Peter was going to do was sit around all day and not spend those perfectly good calories on a glorious walk in the mountains.

The Two Medicine area is some of the most underappreciated back (and front) country in Glacier National Park.   You have both mountain and water features to rival the Many Glacier environs (sans crowds), climbing and scrambling opportunities galore, and wildlife has not been permanently spooked away from the trails because of people.  This is a location you would expect to have a fully established turn-of-the-century lodge. Not just an old beat up camp store.

But looking a little deeper, we see that 2-Med hosted a major Chalet colony in the pack saddle days before WWII. But at only a day’s horse ride from East Glacier.  And there is your answer.  Great Northern RR needed at least a two-day ride between hotels for their tourist trade model to thrive.  And the post war demise of the chalet system has left 2-Med a nice quiet backwater of sorts.

No longer an oasis for the American gilded-age upper-class elite of the East Coast and Midwest. And off the main road from the big Swiss style hotels at Many Glacier and East Glacier. With scenery you’ll only find on postcards, these colorful rugged sculpted peaks are known by name by the few who chose to really get to know and experience this area.

The Dawson/Pitamakan loop takes you across both of those named passes, with an approx. 7ish mile approach to each, with 4ish miles down the continental divide to tie them together.  At around 17 miles for the full loop (with the marginal shortcut tour boat ride on Lower Two Medicine Lake), and the 3000ish gain/lost, it is by all means a real hike not to be taken lightly.  But by no means ‘hard core’ by Glacier standards.  Unless you throw in scrambles to any of the many peaks accessible off the trail.  That’s when you can push it to 20+ miles and start seeing the 6k gain.

I started in the 5am hour gearing up out of the back of the Santa Fe at the trailhead.  In the early morning darkness, it would appear you should never pull out the Ped-Egg callus shaver (which I would never admit to having) and start doing a little pre-hike callus knock down under headlamp before booting up for a long day.   

Now, just maybe, the guy who chose the campsite across from the trailhead might hear that sound, which was kinda like a cheese grater shaping a block of Kevlar. And maybe he even comes rushing out of his motorhome in the pre-dawn darkness armed with a can of bear spray.  At that point, he might even accuse some guy in the dark of purposely making this sound to mimic a grizzly bear trying to claw his way to get to his RV.

And it was so bad his 3-pound rat dog was terrorized. Yeah. I seem to be meeting new people every day.   But is not every day (or early morning) you get to tell a total stranger to ‘****-off and get a real dog.’ At least, not sober. Only in a national park.

It was a morning of clouds, which I took as a good sign.  Finally, a cool day to hike.  Hitting Pitamakan Pass first is clearly the way to go.  A nice long valley to look back on, a gradual climb, and Old Man Lake provides a classic backdrop. Plus it is only a mile climb up the headwall to reach the Continental Divide.   

That is when Mother Nature cut loose and gave me sideways rain, high wind, and pretty much made me eat a great big sweaty slice of humble pie.   This was a critical point in the day.   If I had 3-4 miles of this kind of weather exposure, I was clearly going to die of hypothermia. So, I spent the next hour watching the rain squalls move in and dump, needing to make the decision to retreat for another day or fully commit to the loop.  

Ultimately, I could see the trailing edge of the storm rumbling over the Nyack, smiled, and started making up for lost time.  Swapped out socks and boot liners for dry ones, hung wet clothing on my pack like Sherpa prayer flags to dry, and humped my miles on the Continental Divide.

Hiking along the CD was open and incredible.

There are three peaks I wanted to climb:  Morgan, Flinsch, and Helen.  I started Morgan in the rain and the cliffs were just too wet.  Mtn sheep of plenty. 

After sketchy lake views around Pitamakan, I kept moving forward to the wonderfully carved horn of Flinsch (Even a blue sky halo appeared over it). Flinsch was named after Rudolph Flinsch, a German fellow who was on a hunting trip in the area in the pre park-days. 

Imagine his surprise when 20 years later (1915), he was shown a map of the park by a friend, and saw his name on a peak.  I guess the guide couldn’t come up with something better.  Plenty of sheep around the base, so hunting must have been good back in the day.   Bits of sun were showing on far off peaks, so I had made the right call to soldier forward. 

Flinsch was a great scramble. I left the trail just before the drop to Dawson Pass.  Cliffs were not too bad, and I just felt like I was sitting on top of the world.   A must do for anyone taking on the loop.  And the Continental Divide part of the trail was not as narrow as everyone kept saying.  At least to me.  On the descent I did come across a weird mud pattern slab from an ancient sea bed millions of years ago.  Caught my eye.  Skies were getting better, weather warmer, broad stretches of trail, and yes:  more sheep.

Comments from the Summit:

At Dawson Pass I had a clean approach to climb Helen Pk.  This was named by the famous Glacier Ranger Crossley (mainly in the Belly River area), after one of his many girlfriends.  This guy was a mountain man, poet, and good with the ladies.  I’m sure we would have been good friends.  Helen was an easy walk up, not much to look at, but the views got the job done.  Apparently much like the original Helen herself. I could see the inspiration.  Commanding views of the 2 Med valley. 

Comments from the Summit:

From the top of the world to the car is many miles, and I am out of water.  So, I begin the long trek down in the heat of the 3pm afternoon sun from Dawson Pass.  Couple miles into the valley I used the first water source to refill my 3 liter (with inline filter). Then just sucked down Propel packets and watched the beautiful scenery go by. 

Although my feet were numb, I could still appreciate the ptarmigan in the trail and the moose I wished had been farther off the trail.  With head down, I almost walked up on this busy and unaware behemoth grazing just off the trail.

Back at the car, I used the sun shower that had been left on the hood to knock off all the salt and trail grime for the 1.5 hr. drive home.   Mixed up a Starbucks packet for a little coffee hit and then munched on an uncooked ramen brick like an apple.  Back at ‘home’, I found a real apple which paired nicely with some humus and anything else I could find with salt.

Then I fell asleep with my feet elevated in a hammock for an hour and a half, then woke up in the darkness you can only find in an RV park, and moved to my bed for another ten hours.  Up at 8am feeling good and rested for a new day day. All I could do was keep wondering what Helen the girlfriend must have looked like to get a peak named after her.